Monday, April 30, 2012

May Stamp of the Month Blog Hop

May is here and that means a new Stamp of the Month from Close To My Heart. This month's stamp set is called "Friendship Bouquet" and features several big sunflower images and some sweet friendship phrases. You can view all the images in this set in the right-hand column of my blog.

If you're in need of inspiration, the Stamp of the Month Blog Hop is the place to get it. Over 50 CTMH consultants are participating this month which guarantees plenty of great ideas. If you're already hopping, you came here from Mary Eisen's blog. Keep scrolling through my post to the end to see where to hop to next.

Meanwhile, check out what I created with this pretty stamp set. It's a tent card that I plan to fill with sunflower seeds.

To strengthen the base, I cut two pieces of Kraft card stock at 1 9/16 x 6 inches...

and glued one to the inside and one to the outside.

Now it stands up on its own and can be filled with a clear bag

of goodies or some seed packets.

On a piece of watercolor paper cut to 3 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches, I random-stamped some sunflower and leaf images with an archival dark brown ink, masking along the way (post-it-note) to get the leaves close to the flowers.

To watercolor my images, I filled several little cups with re-inkers. Shades of yellow and gold plus green.

Using a waterbrush, I dipped it into the color I wanted, brushed off a little on my mat, then started painting.

I started with the lightest color and painted the outer petals. In this case, Sunflower yellow.

Then I quickly painted in with Goldrush and blended the two together by squeezing water from the waterbrush gently.

I finished the inner part with Autumn Terracotta.

On the large piece with all the stamped images I felt that the colors were a little bright so I sanded over the surface to distress it.

Then I blended in some Bamboo ink with a sponge dauber in the white spaces.

I distressed the edges of the paper with scissors and then ink-distressed with Cocoa.

Then adhere this to a piece of B&T paper.

For added interest, I used a basic hole punch and punched some circles in the scallops of the die-cut card.

I glued a velcro circle to the flap to help keep the card closed...

and lined the inside of the card so it wasn't so plain. Here is where I will attach some sunflower seeds.

Here's another look at the finished tent card...

Thanks for scrolling all the way through. Now continue on the Blog Hop and let's see what Allisa Chilton has created.

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About Me

Former graphic designer on a creative journey in life designing, teaching and sharing the Graphic 45 love. Mother to an amazing daughter in art college, wife of 26 years to Paul, and owner of our sweet shy Sheltie named Suki. We live in Melbourne, Florida in the beautiful Suntree community.